1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of data processing systems and in particular to the field of minimizing conflicting activities with respect to an object stored within a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to the field of automatically determining if a proposed activity represents a conflict with an existing activity with respect to an object stored within a data processing system by utilizing an established state mask.
2. Description of the Related Art
Graphical user interfaces are well known in the art. Users may select a particular activity for the data processing system to perform utilizing input devices such as a keyboard or a "mouse." These particular activities such as "print document" or "select a document" may be represented to the user in the form of function keys graphically displayed on the computer display screen and selected by striking a particular key on the keyboard, or as icons to be selected utilizing a graphical pointing device such as a "mouse". A pointer on the display screen represents the current location of the "mouse." By moving the "mouse", a user may move the pointer around within the computer display screen.
Icons may also be graphical representations of a particular activity to be performed. For example, the "select a document" activity may be graphically represented by a graphic representation of a filing cabinet. A user may select this activity by moving the "mouse" to position the pointer over the graphic representation of the filing cabinet. The user may then "click" the "mouse" button twice to indicate a selection of a particular graphic representation.
A filing cabinet, as displayed by a graphical user interface, may contain multiple "drawers" each including multiple "files." The "files" are organized in the "drawers" of the filing cabinet by a user in a manner similar to that utilized in a real world filing system. A user may place multiple copies of a particular file in multiple drawers of the same filing cabinet, or in multiple drawers of different filing cabinets. Each file thus graphically depicted is represented by a separate icon. If the same file is graphically represented in two different filing cabinets, each filing cabinet will include a separate icon which graphically represents the file. Therefore, two file icons may appear on the display screen for a single file object.
A problem may arise if a user attempts to perform an activity on one icon which graphically represents a file and then attempts to perform a conflicting activity on another icon which graphically represents the same file. For example, a user may have stored a single document as "File 1" in two different filing cabinets. The user may select "File 1" from filing cabinet 1 and attempt to print that file, and then select "File 1" from filing cabinet 2 and attempt to shred that file. An attempt to print and shred the same file, at the same time, are clearly conflicting activities and may produce an unpredictable result.
Therefore, it should be obvious that a need exists for an improved method and system whereby conflicting activities are minimized with respect to an object stored within a data processing system.